The present invention relates to an inflatable boat, particularly an inflatable kayak.
Inflatable boats are already well known, and usually they include a boat body of fiber-reinforced or fabric-reinforced natural or synthetic rubber or of flexible synthetic plastic materials. The body of the boat is conventionally formed with tubular elements which extend generally in the longitudinal direction of the inflatable boat. When the tubular elements are inflated, they give the necessary rigidity to the boat body. It is also already known to form the tubular elements as portions of the body of the boat, such as by making the body of two superimposed layers which are connected to one another at selected regions so as to provide the tubular elements. The deck portion of the body is usually provided with at least one access opening which communicates the interior of the boat with its exterior and in which there may be accommodated a rigid seat.
The German utility Pat. No. 1,696,469 published Mar. 21, 1955 discloses an inflatable kayak in which the entire body is subdivided into a plurality of interconnected tubular elements and in which the user of the kayak sits on a cushion which is preferably connected to the body. Such an inflatable kayak, however, did not find widespread use inasmuch as it is possessed of some serious drawbacks.
The outer contour and the dimensions of a kayak are, in general, predetermined inasmuch as they ought to correspond to the contour and dimensions of a rigid kayak which is made of a glass fiber reinforced synthetic plastic material. Thus, when the inflatable kayak is so constructed that its outer dimensions when inflated correspond to those of a rigid kayak, then there is available only a very limited amount of space in the interior of the inflatable kayak, particularly since the inflation of the tubular elements results in an increase of the space taken up by the same. Under such circumstances, the user of the kayak had to sit with almost completely outstretched legs and with forwardly extending feet, which resulted in a situation where the user of the kayak was in completely insufficient contact with the inflated kayak body. This, of course, was very disadvantageous, particularly since all driving movements and driving and steering forces are applied to the kayak body as reaction forces exercised by the body of the user. Thus, a stable position of the user relative to the kayak is an absolute necessity, which condition was not satisfied in the above-mentioned inflatable kayak, rendering the control of the kayak during its travel on a body of water less than satisfactory.
A further disadvantage of the aforementioned inflatable kayak results from the configuration of the deck portion of the kayak body. Like the remainder of the boat, the front part of the deck portion of this kayak is constituted by a plurality of tubular elements which extend substantially parallel to one another in the longitudinal direction of the boat. The tubular elements bulge not only inwardly of the kayak, but also outwardly thereof, thus forming at the outer surface of the kayak a plurality of convex bulges which alternate with grooves. Experience with this type of an inflatable kayak has shown that the grooves guide the water which splashes or spills over the front portion of the kayak directly to the user of the boat. This is particularly disadvantageous when the kayak is used in rapids or under similarly difficult conditions where water constantly spills over the front portion of the kayak and flows over the deck portion of the body of the kayak toward the user. The overflowing water accumulates in front of the user of the boat and often forms a spray which more often than not reaches the face of the user of the boat. This, of course, is not only very unpleasant, but may even constitute a hazard because the driver may be temporarily blinded by the spray and thus lose control of the boat.
In order to avoid the first of the above-discussed drawbacks, that is, the insufficient bodily contact of the user with the boat, it has already been proposed to accommodate a rigid seat in the access opening of an inflatable and foldable kayak. It is true that the provision of the rigid seat, which is connected to the deck portion of the kayak body, resulted in a better transmission of forces from the body of the user into the body of the kayak. However, since the tubular elements which form the deck portion of the kayak extend substantially parallel to one another and thus must be interrupted in the region of the access opening, this construction still leaves much to be desired, particularly as far as stability of the kayak is concerned. Even though all of the forces resulting from the movements of the user of the kayak are completely transmitted into the seat, the latter is still free to move to some extent and in an undesirable manner, together with the deck portion of the kayak, relative to the remainder of the boat body. On the other hand, even this modified inflatable kayak does not solve the problem of preventing the spill-over water from accumulating in front of, and inconveniencing and possibly endangering, the user of the kayak.
Another disadvantage encountered in the kayak construction is that spill-over water may seep into the interior of the kayak through a gap which is present between the deck portion of the kayak and the seat.